Semiconductor light sources, such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes (LDs) are used to provide illumination, optical radar and signaling in optical communication networks. They are used to transduce electrical signals to optical signals that carry information via optical fibers in the physical infrastructures of the various local and global communications networks to support the rich menu of voice, video, text, and data services that is the backbone of modern society and its activities.
The amount of information transferred over the communication networks is growing at a staggering rate. A white paper published in 2008 by Cisco Systems Inc. entitled “Approaching the Zettabyte Era” predicted that global IP traffic will increase from about 10 exabytes per month in 2008 to over 40 exabytes per month in 2012. The rapid increase in global communication traffic has generated a need for communications equipment that can not only support the increased traffic rates with greater optical signaling rates, but can provide the support in ever smaller physical packaging.
As optical signaling rates provided by communication equipment increase and size of the equipment shrinks, the LEDs and LDs, hereinafter generically referred to as LDs, that generate optical communication signals are required to operate at ever higher frequencies and to be packaged in ever increasing spatial densities. The increasing operating frequencies and packaging densities results in continually increasing severity of constraints to be met by mounts that physically support the LDs. The mounts are advantageously configured to provide the LDs with appropriate electrical connections to circuits that drive and control them in an increasingly crowded component environment, to dissipate increasing amounts of heat they generate during operation, and to provide for convenient alignment of the LDs with optical fibers that receive optical signal they generate. Commercial constraints generally require that the mounts, conventionally referred to as “sub-mounts”, also be relatively easy to produce in large quantities and to be relatively inexpensive.